South Africa – Religion & Ethics NewsWeeklyhttp://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics
An examination of religion's role and the ethical dimensions behind top news headlines.Wed, 05 Apr 2017 14:50:31 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.5 Nelson Mandela, 1918-2013http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2013/12/06/december-6-2013-nelson-mandela-1918-2013/21353/
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2013/12/06/december-6-2013-nelson-mandela-1918-2013/21353/#disqus_threadFri, 06 Dec 2013 22:35:48 +0000http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/?p=21353The first democratically elected president of South Africa died this week at the age of 95. We look back at the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela, who led the movement to end apartheid peacefully. More →

]]>Nelson Mandela died this week at the age of 95. We look back at the life and legacy of this beloved South African leader who led the movement to end apartheid peacefully in 1994, and later became the first democratically elected president in the nation’s history.

]]>http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2013/12/06/december-6-2013-nelson-mandela-1918-2013/21353/feed/5 Robert Franklin Extended Interviewhttp://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2011/08/26/august-26-2011-robert-franklin-extended-interview/9385/
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2011/08/26/august-26-2011-robert-franklin-extended-interview/9385/#disqus_threadFri, 26 Aug 2011 21:00:12 +0000http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/?p=9385The president of Morehouse College speaks about Martin Luther King Jr.'s religious maturation as well as the need for contemporary Americans to have "the moral will to act" in the face of persistent economic disparities between blacks and whites.More →

]]>Watch more of our conversation with Morehouse College president Robert Franklin on such issues as the religious ecumenism of Martin Luther King Jr. and the need for “small and large acts toward reconciliation” among contemporary religious leaders of all faith traditions.

]]>http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2011/08/26/august-26-2011-robert-franklin-extended-interview/9385/feed/0 Post-Apartheid South Africahttp://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2010/07/02/july-2-2010-post-apartheid-south-africa/6590/
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2010/07/02/july-2-2010-post-apartheid-south-africa/6590/#disqus_threadFri, 02 Jul 2010 16:23:29 +0000http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/?p=6590Sixteen years after a mostly peaceful transition and elections that brought Nelson Mandela to power, the verdict on South Africa is decidedly mixed. More →

FRED DE SAM LAZARO, correspondent: South Africa has spent six billion dollars just on stadiums—money that could have gone to many pressing needs in a poor country. But that debate has been set aside for the celebrations these days. No one, it seems, has escaped World Cup fever—not even Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who came to our interview wearing soccer vestments.

ARCHBISHOP DESMOND TUTU: Many of those who are celebrating are the very ones that you would have thought wouldn’t because they are poor. But the scriptures long ago reminded us that human beings don’t subsist only on bread. You need things that lift your spirit.

DE SAM LAZARO: For five decades, Tutu has been one of South Africa’s most prominent voices —a leader in the struggle against the white minority rule of apartheid, leader of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that is widely credited for a mostly peaceful transition after elections in 1994 brought the long-imprisoned Nelson Mandela to power. Now frail, the 92-year-old Mandela makes only rare public appearances. Tutu is also retired, but he keeps a much higher and often outspoken profile.

TUTU: God gave us an incredible start with a Nelson Mandela, and it would be very difficult to maintain that quality of leadership.

DE SAM LAZARO: After 16 years, the verdict on South Africa is decidedly mixed. It still has the modern infrastructure, built for its affluent 10 percent white minority. What’s new are places like this glitzy mall in the historically black township of Soweto. Not long ago, the only blacks in places like these would have been cleaning them. Today, few people can match the consumer appetite of people like Tim Tebeila, part of a new class of black industrialist. He recently came to the site of a multimillion-dollar home he’s building near Johannesburg.

CONTRACTOR (speaking to Tim Tebeila): We’re still waiting for the Italian chandelier to come in that you chose. I think it weighs, what, one-and-a-half tons?

DE SAM LAZARO: Tebeila was a young member of the African National Congress, or ANC, that was banned for fighting apartheid, which officially excluded the 85 percent black majority from all but the most menial jobs. All that changed after ANC leader Nelson Mandela’s election in 1994.

TEBEILA: My business career in 1994 I can say has improved dramatically.

DE SAM LAZARO: Tim Tebeila is a natural salesman who quickly found success in the insurance business. By 1995 came more opportunities.

TEBEILA: I then established a company called Tebeila Building Construction. Now that was also in response to a new trend in government in terms of trying to empower the blacks.

DE SAM LAZARO: Tebeila is one of the most successful beneficiaries of new, sweeping policies to increase black participation in the economy: more ownership of shares in industry, affirmative action in hiring, and more government contracts. The problem, many experts say, is that such success stories are all too few. The new policies have many more people feeling hurt rather than helped. Coenie Kriel has spent four months scouring the Internet for a new job.

COENIE KRIEL: A lot of the adverts are stipulating AA. That stands for affirmative action, meaning that they prefer the AA candidate.

DE SAM LAZARO: The 45-year-old mechanical engineer was laid off from a mining company in February. Four years ago he left a previous job after being passed over for a promotion. In both cases, he says, affirmative-action considerations may have hurt him, even though he’s not entirely opposed to them.

KRIEL: You get in these phases up and down, and you feel why me? But then you realize that’s basically life, and between myself and my wife we believe that it’s the way of the Lord.

DE SAM LAZARO: And overall Kriel has reason to be optimistic and confident. Despite government programs, white South Africans are doing well. White unemployment is just five percent, and given the shortage of engineers, Kriel is confident he’ll soon land a job.

That confidence is hardly shared by blacks. Although living conditions have improved somewhat among black South Africans, black unemployment is officially 25 percent. In reality it’s likely much higher. Unlike their parents, young blacks like Nonthokozo Kubeka can visit shopping malls, but many can do little more than visit.

NONTHOKOZO KUBEKA: I think that the problem in South Africa is that we have the most brilliant policies, but they’re on paper.

DE SAM LAZARO: She got a government loan to attend college—the first in her family ever to do so. But the 24-year-old political science major hasn’t found a job 16 months after graduating.

KUBEKA: The situation is you are more likely to succeed if you know the right people, if you were in the struggle for some reason even. I’m too young to have been in the struggle.

DE SAM LAZARO: South Africans of all races complain about corruption, about high crime rates, about an education system in decline. Amid all this—amid political scandal surrounding the extramarital affairs of current president, Jacob Zuma, the ANC has continued to win elections, still trading, experts say, on its reputation as the party of Mandela. Archbishop Tutu says it will soon have to respond to growing discontent among voters. He’s urged the government to harness what he calls unprecedented national unity leading up to the World Cup.

TUTU: I haven’t seen so many people displaying our flag on their cars and every conceivable place. It’s just a fantastic thing, and we’re enormously grateful that it is there.

DE SAM LAZARO: Are you optimistic that it will reenergize South Africa? And if so, what gives you that optimism? You’ve expressed some reservations about the ability of this government to deliver the goods.

TUTU: I’ve always said I’m not an optimist. I’m a prisoner of hope, which is a different kettle of fish. Optimism is too light. Now to come to your question: I think that they do have amongst the cabinet people who are strategizers, people who are aware that there has been a kind of disillusionment among the people. I mean they’ve seen the protest demonstrations because people are upset at the slow delivery of services.

DE SAM LAZARO: Do you worry about the aftermath of Nelson Mandela’s passing?

TUTU: It’s going to be a horrendous moment in the life of our country. But human beings do have a capacity for adjusting. I mean we’re going to become a normal society, and we will not always be looking to Colossus to lead us.

DE SAM LAZARO: At the end of the day, Tutu said, he pins his hope for South Africa and for the world on what he calls humankind’s intrinsic goodness, the subject of a new book he coauthored with his Anglican priest daughter, Mpho Tutu. They argue human beings are hard-wired to do good.

TUTU: Fundamentally we are good, for you see a good person make us feel good, too. We felt good just watching a Chinese student standing in front of tanks. I mean knowing that he was not likely to succeed in stopping the carnage, but for a moment he did. He made those tanks swerve, and looking at that image our hearts leapt with an exhilaration. That said, yeah, that is how we should be. That is how I hope I would respond.

DE SAM LAZARO: You’ve written that evil will never have the last word.

TUTU: No. Sometimes it takes long.

DE SAM LAZARO: What is the terminal point where you say the last word is being uttered?

TUTU: For the ones who are suffering, it’s forever it seems, but happen it will. Just ask Hitler. Just ask Mussolini. Just ask Amin. Just ask the apartheid guys here. They used to strut around imagining they were totally invincible. You say, where are they today?

DE SAM LAZARO: For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, this is Fred de Sam Lazaro in Cape Town, South Africa.

]]>http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2010/07/02/july-2-2010-post-apartheid-south-africa/6590/feed/2 Archbishop Desmond Tutu Extended Interviewhttp://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2010/07/02/july-2-2010-archbishop-desmond-tutu-extended-interview/6588/
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2010/07/02/july-2-2010-archbishop-desmond-tutu-extended-interview/6588/#disqus_threadFri, 02 Jul 2010 16:22:22 +0000http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/?p=6588"Hoping against hope even when things are really rough—that’s what carried us during our days of our struggle, knowing that this is a moral universe.” More →

]]>“Hoping against hope even when things are really rough—that’s what carried us during our days of our struggle, knowing that this is a moral universe,” says Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Watch more of correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro’s interview with him about post-apartheid South Africa.

]]>http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2010/07/02/july-2-2010-archbishop-desmond-tutu-extended-interview/6588/feed/3 Keiskamma Altarpiecehttp://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2006/09/15/september-15-2006-keiskamma-altarpiece/3757/
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2006/09/15/september-15-2006-keiskamma-altarpiece/3757/#disqus_threadFri, 15 Sep 2006 14:19:04 +0000http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/?p=3757Like many places across the African continent, the tiny fishing village of Hamburg in South Africa has been devastated by HIV/AIDS. Carol Hofmeyr is the doctor who treated many of the villagers there. She enlisted the women of Hamburg to create a massive altarpiece as a symbol of hope and resurrection. More →

KIM LAWTON, guest anchor: Like many places across the African continent, the tiny fishing village Hamburg in South Africa has been devastated by HIV/AIDS. Carol Hofmeyr is the doctor who treated many of the villagers there. She enlisted the women of Hamburg to create a massive altarpiece as a symbol of hope and resurrection. That altarpiece is now being displayed here in the U.S. Hofmeyr described it to us at St. James Episcopal Cathedral in Chicago.

Dr. CAROL HOFMEYR: An altarpiece was traditionally made for churches to stand behind the high altar to show images that would aid people in their worship.

This altarpiece is based on an altarpiece that was completed in the early 16th century, also made for people who were suffering and dying from an incurable disease.

Hamburg is a small village, and there are 3,000 people there. Up to 200 people have died in our little village.

Each section of the art piece is a separate piece and has been worked on by groups of women who daily sat stitching, talking. There were 120 women. It took us six months of hard work.

In the center you see a young widow dressed in traditional widow’s clothes. On either side of her are her children, and a grandmother of the children. And these are the people, the vulnerable people left once the breadwinner, the man, has died.

The second scene — the doors open and there are four panels in the second scene which show a vision of hope, of prayer for the future, a prayer for joy and fullness in the place of loss and grief.

A recognizable fig tree shows the tree of life — people in their different uniforms and costumes doing all forms of worship that are found in Hamburg.

In the last panel there is a map of Hamburg, and I saw it as Hamburg being taken up into some other place, where suffering was no more.

The panels open again. We decided to change the materials quite radically. We changed from embroidery to photography. Those are three photographs that you see of grandmothers in Hamburg. We wanted to depict the strength of these women, the resilience and the ability to withstand the most awful things that can happen.

In the middle panel you see Eunice, and she is with her three grandchildren. Eunice will sing a song meaning “the Lord holds me in his arms and comforts me.”

This altarpiece is dedicated to older women because they carry in them a firm belief in the continuity of life, in the meaning of life, in their love of their families, and they’re able to live on and live on well in the small things in spite of enormous tragedy, and that is a great comfort.

LAWTON: The altarpiece next goes on display at the University of California, Los Angeles.

]]>http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2006/09/15/september-15-2006-keiskamma-altarpiece/3757/feed/0 South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutuhttp://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/1998/10/16/october-16-1998-south-africas-archbishop-desmond-tutu/15269/
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/1998/10/16/october-16-1998-south-africas-archbishop-desmond-tutu/15269/#disqus_threadFri, 16 Oct 1998 16:14:25 +0000http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/?p=15269
BOB ABERNETHY: It’s never easy for a church to admit having been wrong, especially about its interpretation of the Bible. But this week, that happened dramatically in South Africa. For generations, under South Africa’s old system of official racial segregation, … More →

BOB ABERNETHY: It’s never easy for a church to admit having been wrong, especially about its interpretation of the Bible. But this week, that happened dramatically in South Africa. For generations, under South Africa’s old system of official racial segregation, the Dutch Reform Church provided apartheid’s religious and theological foundation. Its leaders argued that the Bible itself ordained white rule. But this past week at its national meeting held every four years, the Dutch Reform Church adopted a resolution calling apartheid not only wrong, but sinful and a travesty of the gospel.

Among those praising the Dutch Reform condemnation of apartheid was South Africa’s retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Tutu won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his nonviolent opposition to apartheid. He remains South Africa’s premier symbol of moral authority. After South Africa’s multiracial elections and change of government in 1994, at the personal request of President Mandela, Tutu chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the official body that brought to light the atrocities of apartheid on both sides, hoping truth would heal bitterness.

This year, Tutu is a visiting professor at Emory University in Atlanta. I asked him about a recent poll reporting that the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission had made South Africa’s race relations worse.

Archbishop DESMOND TUTU (South Africa): Anyone who expected that the revelations that have come as a result of the work of the commission would make people suddenly embrace each other and love each other was totally unrealistic. I mean, when you’re a mother, you hear that your child was abducted and they shot him in the head and they burned his body, and as they were burning his body, they were having a barbecue on the side. If that mother were to say, “I love the people who did this,” she would be crazy. People would say she was abnormal.

ABERNETHY: How long do you think it will take before there can be reconciliation in South Africa?

Archbishop TUTU: It is already happening. I don’t think that you will ultimately say we won’t ever need to have people trying to be reconciled, but most of the people will be reconciled in maybe 10 years. It could be shorter.

ABERNETHY: And the greatest lesson from the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission?

Archbishop TUTU: I learned that we have the capacity for the greatest possible evil, all of us. But more exhilarating, we have the capacity for the greatest possible good. Human beings are an incredible creation.

ABERNETHY: With the U.S. Congress beginning hearings on whether to impeach the president, I asked Archbishop Tutu what his experience with confession and forgiveness in South Africa might say to this country.

Archbishop TUTU: It is never easy to say, “I am sorry.” Those are some of the most difficult words in any language. And when someone has said them, then those of us who are believers ought to be ready to move forward to embrace them with the words of forgiveness. We need to err on the side of generosity or spirit, because confession, especially in the open, publicly, is a desperately, desperately difficult thing. It’s difficult for a husband and wife in the intimacy of their bedroom. You can imagine when it has to happen in the full glare of television lights.

I myself can’t see how much more we want from that person, because he stands, in a sense, naked, if you will forgive the expression, no longer seeking to justify. And for us, especially us who are Christians, once a person is at that point, the gospel constrains you to forgive.

ABERNETHY: Tutu acknowledges that the constitutional and legal processes must proceed. Still, he thinks some Americans have been too judgmental.

Archbishop TUTU: We are forever exalting sexual sinfulness over other kinds of sinfulness. Whether you — when you look at how Jesus operated, the people with whom he was most harsh were not those who fell, according to us, through the flesh. He was far more hostile to people who were proud, people who were forsaken, hypocritical. He was — he was harsh on them. Gentle with the woman caught in adultery, gentle with a Mary Magdalene, who is a prostitute, not so gentle with the Pharisees who thought they knew. And we need to work out for ourselves whether we ourselves are not being like those whom Jesus condemned.

ABERNETHY: Last year, the enthusiastic archbishop was diagnosed with cancer and treated for it. But now, characteristically, he says he feels wonderful.

Archbishop TUTU: I think it’s a good thing to have had cancer, because it’s a wonderful indication of your mortality. And it actually makes you become more grateful, more appreciative of things that you used to take for granted. I now realize, I mean, when I attend a funeral, and I see the coffin descend into the grave, that, hey, sometime, it’s going to be me.

And, as I say, it does give a new intensity to your living. It gives a new quality to relationships. You look at the rose with dew on its petals, and there’s a new intensity to its beauty because you say, “I may not be seeing this for a very, very long time.”

ABERNETHY: How many people do you know who could say cheerfully it’s a good thing to have had cancer? Archbishop Tutu will present the official findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to South Africa’s President Mandela on October 28th.

One of the rules of the TRC was that no one coming forward to acknowledge crimes had to apologize. Archbishop Tutu clearly respects the importance of confession and repentance, but he explained in our interview that in South Africa, they did not require anyone to say, “I’m sorry,” because they felt they could never be sure the person saying the words was really contrite.